Wadebridge Town Hall is a municipal building in The Platt,

Wadebridge Wadebridge (; kw, Ponswad) is a town and civil parish in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town straddles the River Camel upstream from Padstow.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 200 ''Newquay & Bodmin'' The permanent populat ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, England. The town hall is currently used as the meeting place of Wadebridge Town Council.

History

The construction of the building was an initiative by the local

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

, Sir Paul Molesworth of

Pencarrow Pencarrow ( kw, Pennkarow) is a listed building, Grade II*-listed country house in the civil parish of Egloshayle, in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated three miles (5 km) east-southeast of Wadebridge and three miles ( ...

, to create an events venue in the town. It was built and financed by a specially formed company known as the Molesworth Hall and Exchange Company. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Lady Robartes of

Lanhydrock House Lanhydrock House, commonly known simply as Lanhydrock, is a country house and estate in the parish of Lanhydrock, Cornwall, UK. The great house stands in extensive grounds (360 hectares or 890 acres) above the River Fowey and it has been owned ...

on 1 February 1887. It was designed by the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

architect, C. E. Collins, in the

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

, built in

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

stone and was officially opened by Sir Paul Molesworth as the Molesworth Hall and Exchange on 23 May 1988. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto The Platt; the central section of three bays, which projected forward and was faced with a

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

finish, featured a round headed doorway with a keystone flanked by

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s and brackets supporting a wide stone

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. Types The traditional Maltese balcony is ...

. There was a large square window on the first floor flanked by two large

s supporting flagpoles. The left hand end bay was formed by a three-stage clock tower surmounted by a

flèche Flèche or Fleche may refer to: *Flèche (architecture), a type of church spire *Flèche (cycling), a team cycling competition *Flèche (fencing), an aggressive offensive fencing technique *Flèche (fortification) A flèche ( Fr. for "arrow") is ...

with clock faces and a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

. The other bays were fenestrated by round headed windows on the ground floor and by single windows on the first floor. Internally, the principal room was the main assembly room. Following significant population growth, largely associated with the status of Wadebridge as a seaport, the area became an

urban district Urban district may refer to: * District * Urban area * Quarter (urban subdivision) * Neighbourhood Specific subdivisions in some countries: * Urban districts of Denmark * Urban districts of Germany * Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland) (hist ...

in 1898. However, successive local authorities, including Wadebridge Rural District Council and Wadebridge and Padstow Rural District Council preferred to operate from dedicated council offices. A Roll of Honour, intended to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who had died in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

was installed in the building in the early 1920s.

Thomas Agar-Robartes, 6th Viscount Clifden Thomas Charles Agar-Robartes, 6th Viscount Clifden (1 January 1844 – 19 July 1930), styled The Honourable Thomas Agar-Robartes between 1869 and 1882 and known as The Lord Robartes from 1882 to 1899, was a British landowner and Liberal politicia ...

donated a large stained glass window for installation in the building shortly before he died in July 1930. In 1945, the building was transferred to a specially formed entity, the Wadebridge Town Trust. It had significantly deteriorated by that time and, in the early 1960s, the local parish council commissioned an extensive programme of refurbishment works at a cost of £20,500. The building was re-opened by the local

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

James Scott-Hopkins Sir James Sidney Rawdon Scott-Hopkins (29 November 1921 – 11 March 1995) was a British Conservative politician. Born in Croydon, Scott-Hopkins was educated at Eton College and the University of Oxford. He joined the British Army in 1939. He w ...

, as the Wadebridge Town Hall and Community Centre in August 1962. The local parish council, which was renamed Wadebridge Town Council following local government re-organisation in 1974, established its base in the building. A large mural depicting the construction of the old bridge across the

River Camel The River Camel ( kw, Dowr Kammel, meaning ''crooked river'') is a river in Cornwall, England. It rises on the edge of Bodmin Moor and with its tributaries its catchment area covers much of North Cornwall. The river flows into the eastern Cel ...

, which had been painted by Victor Martin Harvey for the Bristol & West Building Society in the 1960s, was relocated to the town hall after the building society closed its branch in the town in the early 21st century.

Notes

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1888 City and town halls in Cornwall Wadebridge